The Grinnellian celebrates campus musicians

This Saturday, KDIC will be hosting The Grinnellian music festival. This is The Grinnellian’s second-annual day-long exhibition of campus bands, a cappella groups, poets and more. The festival will take place at the amphitheater in the center of campus from 12 to 7 p.m. In the event of rain, the festival will likely relocate to Gardner Lounge.

This year’s Grinnellian features 28 campus groups including the G-Tones, juggling group the Jugglenauts and The Funk Upstairs, a faculty member band lead by John Edwards, Associate Director of Admission. The festival is designed to be a showcase of all types of campus music, so a wide variety of acts will be represented.

The Grinnellian Festival saw its inception last year under the leadership of Charlie Kessner ’12. Kessner was involved with both KDIC and the greater campus music scene and wanted to leave a lasting impact on Grinnell. He decided to combine his interests and create a student music festival. KDIC took the project under their wing, funding and organizing last year’s festival. Daniel Kisslinger ’14, current Broadcast Manager of KDIC and an organizer of the Grinnellian, described last year’s event as “kind of thrown together” but “very successful.” According to Kisslinger, the seven-hour festival was well-attended and showcased quality music.

Kisslinger and KDIC have taken lessons from last year to create a festival that is bigger and better organized. Other festival organizers include Jack Menner ’13, Station Manager; Ryan Moorehead ’13, Publicity Director; and Connor Schake ’14. They have been working together to plan the festival, which will have many more features this year, since before spring break. In addition to the musical showcase, KDIC will be setting up a vinyl pop-up shop, which will only take cash, to sell a small portion of the radio station’s record library. Kisslinger hopes this sale will act as both a fundraiser for the station and a way to get people excited about the musical resources the station owns. The vinyl records for sale will be just a small part of an expansive record collection available to all Grinnell students in the KDIC station. KDIC will also have a grill to make hamburgers, hot dogs or vegetarian alternatives for festival attendees.

The Grinnellian is also expanding this year in documentation and broadcasting. Although it is currently uncertain whether the festival will be broadcast via KDIC’s station, due to possible mature language, the event will definitely be available online. The festival will be video live-streamed on both KDIC’s website and the Grinnell College homepage. The video will be recorded with multiple cameras and professional-level audio to make the live-stream the highest possible quality. This will allow not only students on campus, but also alumni, family members and friends a chance to experience The Grinnellian from off campus.